| For All Mask-Kind | |
|---|---|
| Season 2, Episode 10 | |
| |
| Air date | 16. September, 1996 |
| Written by | Adam Gilad |
| Episode guide | |
| Previous You Oughta Be in Pictures |
Next Up the Creek |
For All Mask-Kind is the twenty-fifth episode of The Mask: The Animated Series.
Summary[]
Stanley is chosen to be the first average man to be sent into space with paranoid astronaut Gil Headstrong and The Mask comes along for the ride.
Plot[]
Edge City is celebrating the opening of its new space center and the launch of the Inertia, a space shuttle piloted by famous astronaut Gil Headstrong. Unfortunately, the mission is jeopardized by Headstrong's own paranoia about aliens hiding among humans, an attitude worsened when the Mask steals Headstrong's lucky moonrock. To remedy this situation, the space center's adminstration propose to capitalize on the public's newfound interest in space travel by allowing an average joe to travel alongside Headstrong, who doesn't want to share credit with anyone and decides to choose the most pathetic loser among the volunteers so that Headstrong himself looks better by comparison.
Stanley, frustrated that the Mask stole Headstrong's moonrock, decide to return it personally, but Headstrong chooses him as his companion. On the night before launch, Stanley refuses to bring the Mask with him, thinking that nothing wrong will happen in the journey but Milo secretly puts the Mask inside Stanley's bag. The next day, as the Inertia takes off, Gil introduces Stanley to PAL, the artificial intelligence that will control the ship and oversee their journey. Unfortunately, PAL has no desire to follow the orders of humans, whom he sees as primitive and foolish, so he forcibly disconnects the Inertia's oxygen tanks, leaving Stanley and Gil to asphyxiate.
As Gil attempts to escape from the ship, Stanley puts the Mask on and connects the oxygen tanks back to the ship. Gil, believing the Mask to be an alien, closes the ship's doors and attempts to leave the Mask trapped in outer space. Even when the Mask forces his way back into the ship, Gil throws him out of an airlock. Suddenly, the Mask and the Inertia are captured by aliens who want to experiment with them. While Gil passes out from shock at watching real aliens, the Mask annoys the aliens to the point that they return the humans back to their ship, which they load with a device that will destroy all moisture on Earth and render the planet incapable of sustaining life.
As the Inertia returns to Earth, the Mask fails to awaken a shocked Gil, so he has to solve the problem all by himself. After forcibly disconnecting PAL, the Mask removes the aliens' weapon, throws it back into space and safely lands the ship back in Edge City's space center. Gil attempts to convince everyone that he saved the world from aliens, but Stanley, tired of Gil's arrogance, convinces Gil's superiors that Gil is not of sound mind, which is enough to convince them to send Gil to a mental institution.
The aliens' weapon crashes into their ship, damaging it, while the Mask visits Gil at the mental institution just to torment him.
Characters[]
- Stanley Ipkiss
- Milo
- Gil Headstrong
- Charlie Schumaker
- PAL
- The Space Program General
- The aliens
Trivia[]
- The episode's title is a parody of late American astronaut, Neil Armstrong's, famous line when he became the first human being to talk on the Moon; "This is one small step for Man. One giant leap for Mankind." The Mask also parodied the famous quote when about to attack Gil Headstrong, the astronaut who parodies Armstrong as saying, "This is one small step Mask. One giant wedgie for Mask-kind!". Another American astronaut, Jim Lovell, also has his famous line "Houston, we have a problem!", parodied by The Mask as saying "Ah Houston, he has a problem!"
- The Mask parodied a couple famous Looney Tunes characters when sneaking up on Headstrong, who's trying to hunt him. He performs Elmer Fudd's famous catchphrase as "Be vewy, vewy quiet. I'm hunting aliens." then does Elmer's signature laugh. He next said Bugs Bunny's famous catchphrase as "What's up, dork?" towards Headstrong.
- The aliens who abducted and studied on the Mask resembles Nimrel, one of Skillit's zombie goons and the evil version of Merlin the wizard from the season one Halloween episode, All Hallow's Eve.
- PAL, the spacecraft's supercomputer, is a parody of HAL 9000 from the movie, 2001: A Space Odyssey.
- Headstrong says a parody of Buzz Lightyear's famous catchphrase from Toy Story when playing with the 20 g Centrifuge that Stanley was riding on, "To eternity, and beyond."